Houston Veteran Who Stopped a Shooting Suspect Speaks

Sometimes when witnesses to violent crimes choose not to run, they become heroes.

That’s exactly what happened to Houston area military veteran Chance Perkins, when he recently stopped at a south side Valero gas station to fill up his tank. On Thursday morning he appeared on Walton and Johnson, a nationally syndicated conservative talk radio show, to discuss the incident.

During the interview, he explained that when he saw a man shoot a woman at point-blank range, he did more than just watch: he took action.

At 6:30pm on Sunday, Perkins saw the shooting suspect fatally shoot a woman. Rather than run away in fear for his own life, he used the six years of military training he received while touring Iraq and Afghanistan to kick and tackle the suspect to the ground.

Perkins told W&J, “He still had his pistol in his hand when I tackled him. He shot at me three times.”

Fortunately, the suspect missed each of the three shots he fired and Perkins was not hurt. Unfortunately, police say the female shooting victim, 33-year-old Cyril Chatman Jones, was pronounced dead on the scene.

When police arrived on the scene they arrested James Lawrence McCarty, the man who Perkins was holding down.